Networked systems of computers allow parallel and distributed computing. Networked systems of computers may act as clusters, where the computers are nodes in the clusters. Clusters may function collectively as operational groups of servers. The nodes of a cluster or other multi-node computer system may function together to achieve high server system performance, availability, and reliability. High availability (HA) systems facilitate a standby server taking over in the event of undesired failures on a primary server. Goals for a HA system include providing safety and uninterrupted operation. If a primary server fails, failover should occur automatically and operations should resume on a secondary server. However, at any point in time, only one of the primary server or the secondary server should have write access to certain items. For example, at any point in time there should only be one server with write access to file system metadata to prevent corruption of the metadata. When two servers both have write access, this may be referred to as a split brain scenario (SBS).
Conventional systems may have employed protocols and techniques for preventing multiple writer access leading to a SBS. However, these conventional systems may have had no bounds on the timing for a protocol. Additionally, these systems may have been “trigger happy,” which led to unnecessary hardware resets when an ambiguous or non-deterministic state was encountered. One unintentional occurrence that could lead to an undesired hardware reset involves a communications network breakdown or slowdown. Additionally, disk operations becoming congested can lead to a slowdown, even when a communications network (e.g., local area network (LAN)) is working. When synchronizing communications are lost, a hardware reset may be forced, even though all parts of the system except the communications network are healthy and single writer access is still in place.